Related papers: Asymptotic Randomised Control with applications to…
In many real-world applications, it is hard to provide a reward signal in each step of a Reinforcement Learning (RL) process and more natural to give feedback when an episode ends. To this end, we study the recently proposed model of RL…
The multi-armed bandit(MAB) problem is a simple yet powerful framework that has been extensively studied in the context of decision-making under uncertainty. In many real-world applications, such as robotic applications, selecting an arm…
The Multi-Armed Bandit (MAB) problem is challenging in non-stationary environments where reward distributions evolve dynamically. We introduce RAVEN-UCB, a novel algorithm that combines theoretical rigor with practical efficiency via…
For RL algorithms, appropriate entropy control is crucial to their effectiveness. To control the policy entropy, a commonly used method is entropy regularization, which is adopted in various popular RL algorithms including PPO, SAC and A3C.…
We study a stochastic bandit problem with a general unknown reward function and a general unknown constraint function. Both functions can be non-linear (even non-convex) and are assumed to lie in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS)…
Recent progress in reinforcement learning has led to remarkable performance in a range of applications, but its deployment in high-stakes settings remains quite rare. One reason is a limited understanding of the behavior of reinforcement…
Restless Multi-Armed Bandits (RMAB) is an apt model to represent decision-making problems in public health interventions (e.g., tuberculosis, maternal, and child care), anti-poaching planning, sensor monitoring, personalized recommendations…
We consider a novel variant of the contextual bandit problem (i.e., the multi-armed bandit with side-information, or context, available to a decision-maker) where the reward associated with each context-based decision may not always be…
We consider the problem of best arm identification in the multi-armed bandit model, under fixed confidence. Given a confidence input $\delta$, the goal is to identify the arm with the highest mean reward with a probability of at least 1 --…
This paper is in the field of stochastic Multi-Armed Bandits (MABs), i.e. those sequential selection techniques able to learn online using only the feedback given by the chosen option (a.k.a. $arm$). We study a particular case of the rested…
We study the problem of learning 'good' interventions in a stochastic environment modeled by its underlying causal graph. Good interventions refer to interventions that maximize rewards. Specifically, we consider the setting of a…
We consider stochastic sequential learning problems where the learner can observe the \textit{average reward of several actions}. Such a setting is interesting in many applications involving monitoring and surveillance, where the set of the…
Adaptively collected data has become ubiquitous within modern practice. However, even seemingly benign adaptive sampling schemes can introduce severe biases, rendering traditional statistical inference tools inapplicable. This can be…
Early-phase clinical trials face the challenge of selecting optimal drug doses that balance safety and efficacy due to uncertain dose-response relationships and varied participant characteristics. Traditional randomized dose allocation…
Classic no-regret multi-armed bandit algorithms, including the Upper Confidence Bound (UCB), Hedge, and EXP3, are inherently unfair by design. Their unfairness stems from their objective of playing the most rewarding arm as frequently as…
We describe a novel algorithm for noisy global optimisation and continuum-armed bandits, with good convergence properties over any continuous reward function having finitely many polynomial maxima. Over such functions, our algorithm…
We consider a Multi-Armed Bandit problem in which the rewards are non-stationary and are dependent on past actions and potentially on past contexts. At the heart of our method, we employ a recurrent neural network, which models these…
Combinatorial Multi-Armed Bandit with fairness constraints is a framework where multiple arms form a super arm and can be pulled in each round under uncertainty to maximize cumulative rewards while ensuring the minimum average reward…
Solutions to address the periodic review inventory control problem with nonstationary random demand, lost sales, and stochastic vendor lead times typically involve making strong assumptions on the dynamics for either approximation or…
Restless multi-armed bandits (RMABs) provide a scalable framework for sequential decision-making under uncertainty, but classical formulations assume binary actions and a single global budget. Real-world settings, such as healthcare, often…